After a year of budget bombshells, builders will forge ahead on Metro Vancouver’s most critical infrastructure projects.
From the bombshells of the multi-billion-dollar cost overruns at Metro Vancouver’s North Shore wastewater treatment plant and the province’s Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension to smaller increases on the Broadway subway and Pattullo Bridge replacement, 2024 has been a year of major projects struggling to stay on schedule.
Supply-chain constraints during the pandemic that sent material costs soaring, inflation that pumped those costs higher along with wages, and higher interest rates that raised the cost of financing have taken a toll on big pieces of infrastructure that the region needs to support growth.
We take a closer look at five of the biggest now under construction, how they progressed in 2024 and what to expect in the year ahead.
North Shore wastewater treatment plant
Metro Vancouver unveiled a blockbuster $2.83-billion-dollar increase on its already over-budget $1 billion project in March, revealing the full impact of firing its initial contractor, Acciona Wastewater Solutions, then regrouping and restarting with new lead contractor, PCL Construction.
Design changes and construction deficiencies, the responsibility for which are the subject of lawsuits between Metro and Acciona, are among the tasks that occupied crews on the now $3.86 billion project in 2024. Immediate work ahead includes ramping up construction on the primary sedimentation, digester and sludge tanks. The project’s last construction update, which included activity to the end of 2024, said PCL will continue re-signing key suppliers to contracts for critical equipment and materials. The project, initially to be finished by 2020, is now expected to be complete by 2030.
TransLink’s Broadway Subway extension
Contractors on the $2.83 billion extension of SkyTrain’s Millennium Line, between Clark Drive and Arbutus Street, hit major milestones in March and April of this year with the completion of tunnel boring along its 5.7-km length and removal of the two tunnel-boring machines.
However, it was revealed at the end of May that the project, already behind due to a 2022 labour disruption in the concrete industry, would be delayed by another year with completion now expected in 2027. Work started on the project in 2020 and with tunnelling complete, crews are moving on to fitting out the tunnels, installing tracks and continuing construction of its six underground stations.
The province, in its second quarter financial update on Dec. 17, revealed its budget had increased to $2.95 billion.
Surrey/Langley SkyTrain extension
Work on the $4-billion, 16-kilometre extension of SkyTrain’s Expo Line from Surrey’s King George station to Langley, the first major rapid transit expansion south of the Fraser River since the 1990s, was limited in 2024 to survey work, the necessary relocation of utilities, and design work.
The province’s Transportation Investment Corp. announced its preferred contractor for construction of the eight stations, South Fraser Station Partners, and for its track and systems, Transit Integrators B.C. But it was also unveiled that the project’s budget had also exploded by 50 per cent to an estimated $6 billion and its expected completion date had been pushed back by a year to 2029.
Pattullo Bridge replacement
B.C.’s Transportation Investment Corp. is also building the much-needed $1.38 billion replacement for the 87-year-old Pattullo Bridge. The province faced criticism over trading an old four-lane bridge for another with four lanes, albeit wider, that also includes separated bicycle and pedestrian paths.
Crews hit a milestone in May, topping out the tallest of the cable-stayed bridge’s two supporting towers, the tallest such bridge structure in the province. That milestone took longer than expected due to challenges, “including inflationary pressures and global supply issues related to the delivery of specialized components around the world,” that delayed the expected completion date by a year to the fall of 2025. The province, in its second quarter financial update, reported that those challenges increased its cost by $260 million.
Continuing work on the Pattullo replacement includes construction of the off-ramp to Highway 17 and foundations for multi-use paths, on the Surrey side. On the Fraser River’s north bank, the off-ramp to East Columbia Avenue is also under construction. Installation of bridge girders and decking is continuing from both directions.
Massey Tunnel replacement
The province is still more than a year away from starting work on its $4.15 billion replacement for the Massey crossing, which calls for the construction of a new, “immersed-tube” tunnel, which is expected to include a separated bike and pedestrian crossing and two of its eight lanes dedicated to TransLink buses.
In 2017, the NDP government of premier John Horgan scrapped the $3.5-billion, 10-lane bridge planned by the preceding Liberal government, which had already begun preliminary work on the crossing it intended to have complete by 2022.
Work this year included selection of a contractor to design the replacement tunnel, Cross Fraser Partnership. Its subcontractors started in-river geotechnical work last month, work that is to continue till February. The project will also need to complete its provincial environmental assessment before construction can start. Its stated completion date is still 2030.